


Carter Collegiate

by orphan_account



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Deaf Clint Barton, High School, Multi, Trans Character, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 20:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5141615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know those principals, those teachers, those people who you think'll never leave-- the same ones who yelled at your siblings, grumbled over the P.A. year after year-- maybe you didn't love them. But they were a constant. They were unchanging.</p><p>Everyone thought Nick Fury was one of those. But the school board had other ideas.</p><p>(Or: the squad unearths a conspiracy to brainwash the next generation of American youth, Bucky Barnes falls hopelessly in love, the science bros wreck a lab, Natasha bugs Hill's bugs, and Pietro Maximoff makes track city finals.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Primary Sources

** Stark **

** Wednesday, 5:17 PM **

“It’s not gonna _work_ , dude.”

“Try to be a little more supportive,” muttered Bruce from under a welding mask, fiddling with a pair of wires. “You don’t know it won’t work.”

Tony swung his legs back and forth from his perch on the lab bench. “Stick to your biochem and leave the electronics to someone who knows what they’re doing-- it’s not, hear me as I enunciate, it’s Not. Going. To work.”

The robotics lab was plain and under-equipped: Margaret Carter Collegiate hadn’t had more than a penny to its name since the fifties, and even Tony’s father’s generous donation hadn’t gotten robotics much more than a room and a soldering iron; of course, it had been conditional on a portrait of himself hanging above the door. Not the most flattering of pictures: the angle made his nose look huge, and what was intended to be a devious smirk had come out like a grimace.

“They should replace that with one of Carter,” Tony commented, observing the frame. “I’d even be okay if she had her shirt on in it.”

“Stop objectifying women.” A buzz as Bruce flicked a switch, then a sizzle. “Ow!”

“Not objectifying, just appreciating.”

“With _you_ , there’s not much of a difference,” his friend grunted, shaking a burnt hand as he walked over to the sink. “This really hurts. Are you _sure_ you can’t give me some help?”

“You clipped the negative lead onto the LED instead of running it through the resistor first,” said Tony, hopping off the table and switching around the cables. He pulled off a plastic cap with a _click_ , then re-twisted the wires. “You owe me next time we get extra bio homework. Simmons says I can’t copy off hers anymore, something about academic honesty? I don’t know.” Fingers tucked tape deftly around wires. “You know, I’ve been working on an A.I. that smart-answers homework questions-- it can understand grammar and phra--”

“You’re rambling,” remarked Bruce from the corner, where a stream of suspiciously gray water ran from the tap over his reddening palm.

Tony appraised the circuit board. “Am I?”

“What emotion are you trying to repress this time? Crushing sadness? Stress? Natasha wear red lipstick to school again?”

“She did, but I watched her dislocate Grant Ward’s shoulder yesterday because he slapped her ass and I’m staying out of her way.”

“Good, she deserves better than you.” Bruce turned off the water, putting a bucket in the sink to collect the inevitable drips. “What is it?”

He didn’t know. No way Bruce had seen the video, the guy didn’t frequent social media-- and there was no way in hell he could guess, either. There were maybes, unlikelys; there were no-ways and there was two-squared equalling five; and then, _then_ \--

“Fury’s leaving.”

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

Bruce’s eyes flashed green when he got mad. None of the doctors he’d seen could explain it: most of them wrote it off as an optical illusion, refusing to accept the possibility that they just didn’t know. Tony knew. Not what caused it, nah, but he knew what it meant, and that was all he needed.

_Someone’s going down._

** Romanoff **

** Wednesday, 5:17 PM **

It wasn’t Natasha who’d bugged their principal’s office, though she desperately wished it had been. The rumors had gotten around fast, and she’d known it was going to happen eventually-- somebody was going to get sick of the grapevine and go find out for themselves. It wasn’t the fame she wanted, not credit for being the one to bring in evidence. Hell, she wanted to stay anonymous-- she just wanted to win.

Granted, she’d been reasonably confident that the ‘find out for themselves’ percentage of the rest of the school would have been limited to listening outside windows and blurry smartphone videos. Thought she’d have a bit of time to repair her old mics before she jammed one into Fury’s desk, maybe even have saved up enough for a cheap microcam by that point-- inconclusive proof didn’t count for shit, at least not for her. It was about the challenge. She wanted footage. She wanted to win.

Why not? She had time. Plenty of time.

Or at least she thought she did.

The video had popped up on every school Facebook group between six and seven that Tuesday. Blurry footage, okay, but the camera was nicely positioned-- a face undeniably Fury’s as he leaned over his desk, face contorted into what could only be referred to as a snarl.

“ _You’ve got no right to do this_ ,” crackled the audio through Nat’s five-dollar earbuds.

Pause.

“ _I’ve got every right_.”

There was no way to set up a cam in Fury’s office that caught the whole scene: she’d put a lot of thought into it over the past couple days, and the best you could do was rig it up to frame most of the center. You could see the principal, but not who he was talking to.

For that... you’d need two cameras.

What kind of person smart enough to beat her to this would do a half-assed job?

_Think, Tasha._

The school library was empty: Carter Collegiate’s time of scholars and dedicated students who’d stick around to study was long past, and Nat had the place to herself: nobody around to interject as she rose, eyes closed, from her chair.

She could see the office. Three steps left. Rested her palm on the intangible wood of Fury’s desk. _Up…_ and there was the camera, just behind the clock.

Or that’s where she thought it would be.

Natasha turned, the bright lights of the library filtering through her eyelids as she shifted to the right, stepping around a chair, imaginary carpet denting under her feet. One camera showing Fury. One for whoever he was speaking to…

Faces, you wanted faces. Eye level, and the bug would be easy to spot: below was good, above was better. _The bookcase_. Sixth shelf.

That’s where it would be. If she was right.

(She was.)

** Hill **

** Wednesday, 5:17 PM **

Windows could have done with a good clean, but Maria could see through them just fine as the girl stood and closed her eyes, reaching out to some imaginary objective like she was snatching at a ghost.

_Huh._

**Stark**

“Tony.” Bruce was scarier when he was quiet. “I want an explanation.”

“I wish I had one!” replied the other boy sharply. “You know the rumors about him leaving-- well, somebody’s got a video of Fury yelling at someone. _You’ve got no right_. Shit like that. And you can hear one of them threaten him, _if you don’t step down peacefully…_ ”

Bruce’s hands curled into fists, nails digging into the burn. He didn’t wince. “It was Natasha, wasn’t it. She bugged it.”

“She says it wasn’t, but who knows what she’s thinking? That girl could be a fucking Russian assassin and none of us would know--”

“Fury can’t leave. You don’t get it, Tony, they’ve been pushing for this for ages. The school board wants us to get a new principal because Fury’s not _enforcing regulations_. They’re going to change everything.”

Tony’s hands went up defensively. “I’m not the bad guy here,” he implored.

“You don’t _get it!_ ” A yell. The jumble of wire on the table quivered as the room echoed, words scarier after you heard them twice, three times.

“You don’t get it.” Softly now. “They’re going to screw everything up.”

“Worse than Fury’s weekly ‘the world is a scary place and you’re all gonna die’ announcements?” He cringed as he said it. Jokes. Awful defense mechanism.

“Oh, Christ.” The chlorophyll-green tinge was fading from Bruce’s eyes now, and Tony swore he saw tears welling up. “Christ, Tony, you have no idea.”

Come on, don’t cry-- Tony was bad with crying. “Okay, okay, so they’re going to screw everything up, but not today.” He snatched a couple of screwdrivers off the table. Screwdrivers? Come on, Stark… “Today, um… you wanna…” What are you doing, asking him on a date?

“Okay, fuck it,” muttered Tony. “Let’s go break into the office. I’ll hack his computer for you if it’ll cheer you up, figure out who he was talking to. You can send them anon hate mail. It’ll be great.”

Bruce sighed, an empty sound. “You can’t fix everything.”

“Nah,” conceded Tony, “but I can crack firewalls like a boss.”

An awkward silence.

“You’re still holding those screwdrivers,” said Bruce, pointing unessecarily. “Gonna crack those firewalls with ‘em?”

** Romanoff **

Fury’s office was locked. Nat could have picked it, but she was lazy, and the window above the door was propped open to air the place out after a hot day. Receptionists had been gone for at least twenty minutes, so nobody commented as she scrambled up the frame and slid through the window, landing with a soft _whump_ on the floor.

Sunlight filtered through the curtains as she stepped lightly over to the bookcase, counting up to the sixth shelf and running her fingers along the wood until they encountered a tiny bump.

Jackpot.

She prised it off, popping a small black case into her palm. Glass glinted from one end. The second camera.

It was just as she was taping over the lens that she heard a faint rustle behind her.

“That’s mine,” came a casual voice.

Natasha didn’t jump. “Finders keepers.”

“You could tried asking for the footage, you know.” Calmly. Movement in her peripheral vision; she turned slowly to see a slender girl ambling aimlessly towards her. “Consent is important.”

“You don’t _own_ information. You don’t get a say.”

“Camera’s mine, though.” A baggy black t-shirt hung loose off the girl’s shoulders, just a shade darker than her pixie cut. “And I kinda want it back.”

She kept walking, stepping closer until she was just centimeters from Nat’s ear. “Please.”

_Hold it, Nat._

“Huh,” shrugged the girl. “Well. I tried.”

_Hold._

“I’m going to walk out of here now,” Natasha replied, brushing bright hair out of her eyes. “You’re welcome to try and stop me.” _You’re going to try and stop me._

One step.

Two steps.

And then the girl swung.

Not a punch, but a sharp kick to the backs of the knees: _clever_ , thought Natasha as her legs collapsed and she dropped with a thump. _She doesn’t want to hurt me._ Palms to carpet and Nat rolled back to her feet, using the momentum to whack the girl in the gut. _Huff._ Quiet. Fights always were, quieter than in the movies, anyways-- the girl gasped, then faked for Nat’s knees again and got her with an elbow in the jaw.

The redhead stumbled backwards, and that was enough: the girl had her by the wrist and was pressing her face gently into the wall. “Camera.”

Natasha didn’t dignify that with a reply.

“Okay, then,” and the pressure let up suddenly, leaving her free to spin around and meet her assailant’s dark eyes.

Smart move here would be a foot to the chest: shove her backwards and run like hell. Minor bruising. Humiliating. Easy.

But both of Natasha’s boots stayed firmly planted on the ground.

“I’m Maria Hill.” The girl held out a hand.

Both Natasha’s hands stayed firmly at her thighs.

“Or not.” Arm dropped. “We can do this the other way, too, but I’d hate to break a nose as lovely as that. Look, this is way bigger than your little lawbreaking addiction. I. Need. That camera.”

Nat lifted a hand. Examined the device. “It’s a K-906. Transmits wirelessly-- you’ve got all the footage already, why would you need the camera too?”

“Irrelevant,” said Hill, taking a step closer. And another. “Can I have it?”

Silence.

“You can have it tomorrow,” Nat hissed in her face.

“ _You_ can have it tomorrow.”

“Ladies!” yelped Tony Stark from the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm planning on adding tags for characters as they appear and relationships as they develop, but I can tell you there's also going to be a lot of steve/bucky and plenty of nat and clint being assassin bros (no romantic clintasha though sorry)-- so if you like any of those, maybe stick around? :-)


	2. Exposition

**Stark**

 

It had been more than a little suspicious that Fury’s office was unlocked, but who the hell was Tony to turn down a free lunch? One less bobby pin ruined. God knew his hair needed all the help it could get--

“You sure about this?” Bruce had asked as he turned the knob. “I mean, I know _you_ don’t need to worry about university admissions, but--”

“What, is the wittle boy scared?”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he replied, opening the door.

Tony had to admit-- he’d been half-expecting to find Natasha in there, but he certainly hadn’t thought he’d be walking into something quite as intense as this. “Ladies!” he exclaimed-- Instinct. Bad one.

Both girls instantly switched their looks of contempt from each other to him; the stranger, the one with the short hair, took a step back. “Sorry, does this matter concern you?”

Bruce crept in behind Tony, looking for all the world like a kid who’d been caught sneaking broccoli to the dog under the table. “Nah, nah, don’t mind us… just here for a little innocent hacking…”

“Really?” said Natasha, exasperated. “Really, Stark?”

“Sorry to interrupt your lover’s spat,” defended Tony. “Bruce was feeling down, so I offered to crack Fury’s computer for him, and by the way--” directed to the new girl-- “who the hell are you?”

She shook her head instead of answering. “Nothing good on there. He uses a portable hard drive for everything important, schedules and names included.”

“Her name’s Maria, apparently,” cut in Nat reluctantly.

“Thank you,” Hill replied, tone acerbic.

Tony lifted a hand, counting on his fingers. “So you’re some kind of super-spy… you like the colour black, obviously… and your name’s Maria? Wow, so much to go on.”

“We have homeroom together, asshat.”

“Do we? Great. On further reflection, I think I’d rather deal with Natasha on this one.”

Nat sighed. “Natasha would not rather deal with you.”

There was a tremendous crash; the three turned to see a lamp shattered on the floor. Bruce cringed. “Sorry.”

Hill threw her hands up. “Great! So much for _leave no trace_!”

“You know what,” Bruce said, hurriedly gathering up the broken glass, “I _really_ think we got off on the wrong foot here. Let’s start over.”

Tony grinned. “Great idea. Okay, so, I’m Tony, I have daddy issues, and I don’t really know what’s going on.”

“Are we introducing ourselves?” inquired Nat. “Because I honestly feel like the less this woman knows about me, the better.” She gestured to Hill, who scoffed. “Shut it, Natalia.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Look, she doesn’t even know your name, see? No biggie--”

Nat stared openmouthed in Maria’s direction.

“Okay,” muttered Bruce. “Apparently it was us who didn’t know her name? Look,” he cut in. “Let’s get all this out on the table, yeah? I’ll go first.” He dusted lamp debris off his hands. “So. I’d been hearing rumors that HYDRA was looking at taking over Carter Collegiate, and when Tony told me Fury was leaving, I freaked.”

Tony took over. “So I did what usually cheers him up and offered to do some--” he wiggled his fingers-- “FUN N’ FUNKY HACKIN’! And it was working too, but now he’s all depressed again, so thanks.”

He paused. “Wait, what’s HYDRA?”

“Took you long enough,” sighed Hill.

Natasha came to his rescue. “It’s an acronym for Handling of Young Defiants and Regulation Association. They want to mold us into perfect citizens and they plan on punishing anyone who doesn’t fit their vision of what America’s _future citizens_ should be.”

Bruce spoke up. “They’ve been around years, a sort of shadow. You only hear about them in whispers… some people say there’s one of them on the school board. Some people say it’s the whole damn board.”

There was a break, a patch of quiet.

Above them, the lamp whirred softly through the silence.

Or maybe that was the gears in Tony’s brain turning.

Couldn’t deny they were-- _secret organization infiltrating school board → unlikely → stranger lying, Natasha messing with me → likely → shadows stretching out over the floor, November, getting late → fact, focus, Tony. → Bruce. Bruce lying → … → impossible._

Sixteen school board members; a grid flickered into life behind his eyes, faces flashing past. Blurry. Who cared about the school board?

Newspaper headlines; new regulations, reassignments. The header on the standardized tests, shifting every year. Dates on a calendar.

_→ then → probable._

 “Everyone who’s not perfect,” murmured Hill darkly. “They want to make us into straight-A cishet elitist obedient slaves and that’s not my kind of thing.”

Tony blinked. _Not mine either._ “Not mine either,” he blurted.

“Lovely,” Hill replied, sliding her hand over Natasha’s and plucking out the camera. “I’ll be going, the--”

“You’re not going anywhere,” hissed Nat, and suddenly there was a tremendous crash and Maria was flat on her back with a knee at her neck, choking. “You know something.”

“She can’t talk like that,” said Tony mildly. Nat may have been a genius, but everyone had their illogical moments.

“Be quiet, Stark,” Natasha growled, but she let up ever so slightly. “Why are you in here?”

Hill fought to lift her head off the floor half an inch, refusing to break eye contact. “I want to… stop them,” she grunted.

“Great,” stated Nat matter-of-factly. “Me too. Camera?”

“No,” coughed the girl.

“Jesus,” remarked Bruce.

Tony perched on the edge of the desk. “I don’t think she wants to give you the camera.”

“Damn right,” groaned Hill, dropping her head back to the carpet, fingernails digging into her palm. “I told you. You can have it tomorrow.”

Nat’s lip curled. “What, when you’ve wiped it? Nope. What the hell do you think we’re going to do with it? I just want to know who Fury was talking to.”

“She doesn’t trust you.”

Tony hadn’t opened his mouth, and that wasn’t Bruce’s voice--

“Fuck!” yelled Hill, unable to see. “Is EVERYONE just walking in here as they please?”

There was a pause (for dramatic effect, Tony thought) and then an arm raised and shook a set of keys. “Excellent question,” growled Nicholas Fury from the open doorway. “Natasha, get _off_ of Miss Hill immediately.”

“She’s going to make a break for it,” Nat protested, entirely unalarmed at having been caught breaking and entering by the principal. “She’s got a camera!”

“ _Natasha_ ,” repeated Fury.

Nat leaned down and hissed into Maria’s face. “This isn’t over.”

“Calm down,” grumbled the other girl as Natasha let her up. “Try decaf.”

And then she moved: hands flipping the window up, a twist and a vault and the girl was gone but for the grunt of a hard landing on the lawn. Tony winced. _Second floor._ She’d be fine. Knew what she was doing.

Beside Tony, Nat looked left, right, then bolted out the door.

Fury glanced out the glass, then, ambling over, closed it behind her. “All right,” he said, turning to face the remaining intruders. “Now get the fuck out.”

“You can’t leave!” Bruce burst out.

“I can, but you’re leaving first, and you’re leaving right now. _Door_.” He drew out the syllable, pointed for emphasis. “I believe you came _in_ it, you’re welcome to experience it the other way.”

Tony grinned. Getting yelled at was something he was used to. “Joke’s on you, sir, we came down the chimney.”

“Stark. Get _out._ ”

“Wow,” grumbled Tony as Bruce dragged him out. “Somebody’s going to be getting coal for Christmas.”

 

**Barnes**

 

Of all the things James Buchanan Barnes had done in his six years as a cadet in the JMCA, he figured that making out with Tara Winters would have been the most forgivable of the bunch-- sure, he was supposed to have been pitching tents, and Tara had her obligations too, but considering all the shit he’d gotten away with he’d thought that this one might slide.

Apparently not.

According to his C.O., he’d disgraced not only the entire unit, but the whole damn organization: the woman had been wiping tears from her eyes, as if Bucky’s teenage hormones pained her a thousand times more than getting shot in Afghanistan had. He was just about expecting her to pull off her jacket and trot out the standard speech about how she _didn’t get this scar so little boys could waste her time_. An old favourite. Technically, they weren’t a military organization, but that didn’t seem to matter much to her.

Tara, apparently, could do no wrong in their noble leader’s eyes and was let off with no consequences at all.

He’d have left in a year anyways. University and all that shit.

Still, hard to pretend it didn’t sting a little.

“You get an honorable discharge?” Steve had joked when he’d walked out. “Do I get to give a speech?”

Bucky punched him in the shoulder. “Do you even know what an honorable discharge is?”

“Well, one of us is still in Cadets,” smiled Steve innocently. “And one of us got kicked out in disgrace.”

“One of us was getting some and _one_ of us was digging a latrine hole… who’s the real winner in this case?” Bucky defended. “Doubt there were any cute girls on shit-pit duty.”

“None good enough for me.”

He was fucking smirking. _Keep it together, Barnes._ Sometimes he thought Steve knew, thought he did this just to fuck with him. But nah. The guy wouldn’t.

Too damn perfect.

They walked out onto the grass, kicking at the ocean of green. Steve glanced up at the gray sky. “I didn’t really think you’d get-- what is it, expelled?”

“Me neither.”

“Was it worth it?”

A picture of Tara flickered to life behind Bucky’s eyes: blond, close-cropped hair-- blue eyes. Broad shoulders. A grin that could light up a room.

He shook his head. “Nah. She had bad breath.”

“Cut the girl some slack-- like MREs are great for oral hygiene.”

“Are you jealous, Rogers?”

**Rogers**

 

_Not of you._

“Nah.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (there's probably some facts about cadets I got wrong ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ i do not Care oh well)
> 
> thanks again for reading!
> 
> EDIT: I wrote this before jessica jones came out so I've changed Trish to Tara to avoid confusion :)


	3. Post Five

** Banner **

 

He stood in front of the basement wall, running his eyes along a crack that traced its way through the concrete: a narrow strand of black in a sea of gray, and it was tiny, and it was there, and then he took a step forwards and put Sharpie to cement and wrote out a title in bold print.

 _TAKEOVER,_ it said, and he circled it, squeaked out dark ink strokes that radiated outwards like spokes of a wheel. _HYDRA,_ he scribbled along what could have been the edge of the tire; _Natasha_ on the opposite edge, and then, beside it, _Maria Hill?_ He’d watched the video seven times since he’d got home, copied out the man’s words and Fury’s retorts in coloured ink, and this he taped up under the phrase _What I Know;_ a set of specs for the K-906 cameras Maria had set up below that. A jagged arrow wrapped around the scrawls, back up to _Hill?_

Bruce wanted to think.

He wanted to think and think and think, and he didn’t want to stop until he had an answer, a loophole, a fix-- his brain was screaming at him, yelling, _wake UP, Banner!_ He gritted his teeth. Gripped the marker.

A rough calendar appeared on the wall, lines swirling out of it, linking people to places and places to dates. Maria Hill’s school photo, tacked on below her name. Messy graphs, zigzags. Highlighter circles on white paper on cold, cold cement.

The drip of a leak in the basement, somewhere behind him, tapped out a soft staccato beat.

He’d read somewhere that one Sharpie could draw a line half a mile long; never taken one to that point before, but he might be getting close tonight. The U.S. space program had spent millions designing a pen that would write upside-down-- Bruce had one (birthday present from Tony, 2011), but he still didn’t get why they couldn’t just have brought mechanical pencils and saved a fuckton.

Tucking the marker in the corner of his mouth, Bruce snatched up a bunch of sheets as they whirred out of his printer. Dozens of black-and-white faces covered the paper, captioned in plain bold text: _Charlotte Wiebe. Jasper Sitwell. Victoria Hand. Alexander Pierce._ The school board.

He lined them up in two columns beside his spiderweb.

Stepped back. Once. Twice. Three times, until he could see the whole thing, and then he sighed and rubbed his eyes.

It was going to be a long night.

 

** Hill **

“Clinton, _what_ are you doing in my house?”

“It’s not your house,” Clint sighed. “Do they even know you have a key?”

“Of course they do. I’m not a criminal.”

“Yes you are,” Clint corrected, leaning back on the couch and sipping his coffee. Fiddling with his hearing aid. “Where are they?”

Something heavy and numb settled into Hill’s stomach, and she flipped her palms over, signing her words. Her shoulder ached from the impact of diving out the window. “Twelve-week vacation in Peru. Last time they went away, they didn’t bring their dog, and I fed her--”

“And you copied the key.”

“ _You_ would have, too.” Swept her hand side-to-side. Annoyed.

Clint looked indignant. “That’s because my foster parents are asshats and they’d deserve me going missing for a couple days!”

“Oh, and my dad doesn’t? Get out of my house, Clint.” She spat the last word, fingerspelling each letter with measured irritation.

“No, _Hill,”_ he replied. Identical finger guns tapped each other sharply between the knuckles. “If you hate him so much, what’s your thing with the last name?”

She closed her eyes, pointing at the door in a gesture you didn’t need to know ASL to understand. “Get OUT.”

“You gonna make me?” smirked the boy.

Hill tapped her temple, hand bent. “You know I could.”

“I’d probably like it.”

“You’re not my type, Clint.”

He clinked his mug down on the coffee table. Stood. Stretched. “I’m everybody’s type.”

_You’re not cool enough to pull that statement off._

She didn’t say it out loud. Didn’t sign it. He knew.

“I’m going to make you mac and cheese.” A hand flipped over, clapping against his other palm.

_He’s gonna burn it. It’s gonna be a burned, watery wreck of Kraft Dinner, and the kitchen’s gonna be a mess, and the smoke alarm’s probably going to go off which is STUPID because the neighbours think there’s nobody home and-- Shit._

Hill’s thumb tapped her chest, fingers extended halfheartedly. _Fine._

He walked over to her. Put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”

“You’re a train wreck. Not much help coming from you.” She didn’t sign it. Didn’t really want him to catch it.

A shrug. “Okay.”

She never did figure out whether or not he’d managed to read her lips. Whether the _okay_ had been a catch-all or an answer.

 

** Romanoff **

 

The mind map took up all of Bruce’s basement wall, a sprawling expanse of lines and ideas that probably made sense to about one-half of the guy’s mind. Natasha could figure out about a quarter if she squinted; then again, that made it look a lot like a goat. Hard to tell.

“So here’s what I’ve got,” Bruce muttered, tracing the marks with a fingertip as he sipped his coffee. “We know HYDRA’s in the school board. Logic narrows it down a lot; looking at the people who voted against Fury getting kicked out--”

Nat interjected, swinging her legs back and forth from her perch on a table. “They could have voted against to avoid suspicion. If it’s most of the board, they’d be confident enough to afford it.”

“I thought of that,” said Bruce distractedly, gesturing to a series of pink Xes over the faces of board members. “Cross-referenced their public views with a bunch of private crap from social media to make a solid profile. Their votes don’t matter, not really, just gave me a place to start.”

 _Smart._ “A solid estimate, then.”

“Exactly.” He pointed to a series of photographs. Hill. “Now… she knows more than we do. A lot more.”

“I don’t like that.” _Yeah, it’s new for you, isn’t it?_

“You think I do? We need to talk to her,” Bruce stated, holding eye contact. “Pointless doing all this work to figure things out that she already knows.”

Listening with half a ear, Nat reappraised the wall. “How exactly do your parents feel about this?”

Bruce glanced back over his shoulder like he’d already forgotten it. “Oh. That? Yeah, they never come down here.”

“Can’t see why not.” The basement was the least comforting place Natasha had ever seen: low ceilings, no windows, one solitary incandescent bulb. Only way out was up the stairs and through the house. Only shelter was the desk she was sitting on.

She could absolutely see why not. “You talked to Tony yet?”

“Nah. Don’t think he gets the HYDRA thing… what we’re trying to do. It’s new to him.” Bruce pushed his glasses farther up on his nose. “What exactly _are_ we trying to do?”

“I don’t know. I was curious. Now I’m just more curious.” She stilled her feet, lifting one up in front of her to examine the scuffs on her sneaker. “Stop them, I guess.”

Bruce turned back to the concrete with a contemplative sigh. Sarcasm: “Sure.”

 _Oh, Bruce. I’m not saying we_ can _._

“You only asked what were were _trying_ to do,” she remarked. “And I’m not the one who vandalised my basement for the cause… don’t get doubtful on me now.”

Bruce was back to Hill, pulling a photo off the wall, examining her features. “Maybe she doesn’t know anything. Maybe she’s just a cocky asshole who wanted us to think she did.”

“Fury knew her,” Nat reminded.

“Fury’s the principal,” grumbled Bruce. “He knows all of us, idiot.”

“Why _didn’t_ you call Tony? He’d listen to your rambles better than I would!” Natasha didn’t like being talked down to, not even by Bruce. His therapist would have been proud of him for speaking his mind, but _she_ wasn’t raking in a paycheque for this.

Not that he was wrong.

Not that he was ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would say thanks for reading if I wasn't at risk of sounding like a broken record. 
> 
> soooo as an alternative, I'm going to recommend you read The Wicked + The Divine by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, because I feel that bringing this lovely comic into your lives is sufficient to express my gratitude. Nobody's straight! There's gods and pop music! There's canonically trans and nonbinary characters! There's conventions and snark and death and life and even a giant orgy in a church! Honestly, what else could you ask for?
> 
> also... you know what... thanks for reading. i can't help it. sorry. my mother raised me well.


	4. On Coping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is going up late! had trig work to procrastinate and jessica jones to watch. I'll try to make the next one extra long to make up for it :-)
> 
> here's another thing rec: 'The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley' by Shaun David Hutchinson

Rogers

Biology wasn’t Steve’s best subject, and it probably wouldn’t ever be: Bucky liked to joke that he’d had enough of the diseases they were studying to earn a PhD, and he probably wasn’t wrong. Unfortunately, asthma, anemia, scoliosis, three subtypes of pneumonia, and childhood tuberculosis didn’t get him out of homework. Not that he hadn’t tried. Apparently you couldn’t save up school sick days like you could in a job. Nobody cared about his ICU days now that he was 6’2 and healthy as a horse-- a horse with very, very good insurance.

He couldn’t make the chloroplasts and mitochondria line up on his best days, even less so when his best friend had just gotten kicked out of Cadets for some _girl_ \--

Bucky’s voice echoed through his head again. _You jealous, Rogers?_

Steve slammed his binder shut with a surprising crack, dropping his pencil back onto the dining room table. Screw bio. Screw Bucky.

The basketball team didn’t practice Wednesdays, but Steve lived just up the street from the school and nobody noticed if he snuck into the gym to shoot some late-night hoops. Nights were getting longer: it was hardly past eight, but the sky was like pitch, and there was a chill in the air-- he paused at the corner. Glanced up at the sky with a sigh. Couldn’t make out stars in the city.

Side door was unlocked. It closed slowly behind him, _click_ ing back into place as he strode across the gym floor. Making for the rack of basketballs in the corner.

It was a simple contraption: two wire shelves, eight balls each. All of them were ever-so-slightly warped from years of abuse. The old-looking ones were the best, usually-- nobody used them, so they didn’t get messed up. Steve had one he liked. He always put it away in the same place, bottom left, last one, to make sure the other kids wouldn’t move it.

He didn’t know why he cared so much.

Dumping his jacket next to the rack, he snatched up the ball and flicked it into one of the side nets. _Swish._

Swish.

Swish.

Thunk.

Off the backboard. _Come on, Steve._

He stepped back, dribbling absentmindedly. Pads of his fingers pressed the ball back towards the floor in a steady beat. The gym was big: the sound echoed from the balcony, from the walls.

Swish. _Biology._

Swish. _Fury._

He wasn’t happy about the guy leaving. Nobody was.

Thunk-swish. _Oxygen masks. Blurred sirens._

Swish. _Bucky._

A line of pennants fluttered along one wall: relics from the school’s days of athletic prowess. The most recent one was dated two years ago. ARCHERY CITY CHAMPIONS, read the blocky text-- no name, but it might as well have had a photo of Clint on it. Everybody knew it was the only thing the train wreck was good at. Had been good at once upon a time.

Knees bent, feet apart. Ball up.

Hop. Swish.

It wasn’t quiet in the gym. Not at all. Wind sang by the windows, electricity hummed, ball ricocheted off the floorboards in a staccato rhythm. And yet, he was alone, and it was nice. Nobody thumping around upstairs. No scratching pencils. Nobody else.

Swish.

Swish.

Tony

 

“Tony, put down your laptop.”

“I’m distracting myself!”

“Suck it up. Roll up your pants.”

Grudgingly, Tony slammed his computer shut and dropped it beside him on the examination table. “Do it fast,” he ordered, yanking up the left leg of his too-big jeans.

The doctor flicked an air bubble out of the syringe. “Thought you’d be used to this by now, dude,” she joked.

“I don’t like needles.”

“Be a man!”

“That’s why I’m here!”

She didn’t even bother counting down before jabbing him. “OW!”

“Intramuscular injections hurt. Sorry. You can always go for the pills and suffer the liver damage, I guess.” Delivered with a bit of a smirk as she handed him a cotton ball.

Tony rubbed the sore spot on his thigh as the needle fell into the sharps bin with a plink. “I’m good.”

“Awesome. So, you know the drill, blah blah blah.” She handed him a pamphlet. “Call 911 if you start dying, don’t kill yourself, take your calcium.”

Tony appraised the paper doubtfully. “You give me one of these every single time I come. I could wallpaper my bedroom.”

“Standard procedure! See you in a month, nerd.”

“You’re so professional.”

She grinned. “I know.”

 

Romanoff

Natasha: _barton, you know anything about a Maria Hill?_

Clint: _yea. im eating kraft dinner with her._

Natasha: _oh_

Natasha: _you know she beat me up today_

Natasha: _*i beat her up. damn autocorrect._

Clint: _ok_

Natasha: _so…_

Clint: _so………._

Natasha: _she knows things I want to know_

Clint: _lmao what do u want me to do? torture her? cut her a little slack_

Clint: _man im sorry she beat u up but she’s my friend too_

Natasha: _torture is your word not mine, idiot, i just wanna talk to her_

Clint: i _s this about fury bc she won’t talk abt that_

Clint: _and tbh the girl needs someone in her corner who’s NOT milking her for info_

Natasha: _jesus clint, who pissed in your cereal_

Clint: _ill tell her u want 2 talk but im not going undercover for u_

Natasha: _NO DONT_

Clint: _would it kill u to actually be upfront 4 once in your life? u can just freaking ask her if you want answers_

Clint: _telling her now_

Clint: _bye_

 

Nat threw her phone across the room.

Or at least that’s what she imagined doing. But it was a stupid impulse, and the screen was cracked enough already, and she couldn’t afford a replacement. So she settled for flopping back on her bed and groaning.

It was a valid point on Clint’s part, and she didn’t like it.

The real question here was-- did she trust Hill? If she did, she might as well just wait for the girl to come to her tomorrow. Even if all she coughed up was the camera, as promised, Natasha figured that with advance notice she could probably take her. Not hurt her, but hold her up long enough to convince her to share what she knew.

If she didn’t trust her… well. Say Hill didn’t turn up. Clint knew where she was, and Nat knew Clint-- if that failed, she knew his phone password. Either way, then, did it really matter whether or not the girl was trustworthy? Whether she came and found Natasha or Natasha came and found her?

_But Clint’s telling her I want to talk._

She’d have warning. Sort of. A little. But Nat would have surprise.

Good.

 

[unknown number]: _This is Hill. I’ll be at the park near Clint’s at eleven. Come or don’t._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!


	5. I've Got A Dark Alley and a Bad Idea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is dedicated to mia <3! your comments mean a lot. hopefully maria and nat are to your liking in this chapter!

Hill

 

Every year, the city said they were going to renovate this park, and every year, the budget shrank. It was Hill’s opinion that the money wasn’t shrinking so much as it was mysteriously disappearing, but that wasn’t her business.

The chains on the swings were almost rusted through. She shook one of the seats, watching rusty orange flakes tumble to the ground. They seemed almost to glow under the streetlights.

The ancient structure creaked in protest as she sat down, running her finger over the plastic casing in her pocket. She’d popped the lens out: maybe she was clever, but she wasn’t rich. Wouldn’t want Natasha deciding to keep the thing for her nefarious purposes.

“I think you’ve got trust issues,” Clint had smirked, fiddling with the glass.

 _Fuck you,_ Hill had signed back.

Again, the guy probably wasn’t wrong. Definitely wasn’t wrong. Oh well.

A cool breeze flew out of the shadows, blowing what was left of Hill’s hair squarely into her eyes. _Three inches, and it still gets in the way._ One frigid tendril huffed its way through the fabric of her sweatshirt, and she spared a second to shiver. Summer’d been gone for months, but denial was a powerful thing.

There was a shuffle of feet on sand behind the swings, and Hill gripped the chains so tightly her knuckles whitened. _Don’t move._

“So,” came a voice.

“So,” replied Hill, staring up at the sky.

The footsteps moved closer. “Hi.”

 _Hi._ “Hi, Natalia.”

“It’s Natasha,” and then the swingset creaked again as the girl took a seat. “You… called?”

Hill took a breath. Smiled noncommittally. Glanced over. “And you came.”

The redhead shrugged, curls bouncing as she swung her legs back and forth. “You know things. I’d like to know them, too.”

“I read your texts to Clint.” _Cut to the chase, why don’t you._ “I don’t know as much as you think I do.”

“Why’d you run, then?” It was Natasha’s turn to look up at the stars. “I don’t bite.”

Hill’s bruised shoulder ached. “Like hell you don’t. But that’s not why.” Another breeze stirred up, whisking dark hair _off_ her face this time around. “Clint would say--”

The other girl snorted. “That you’ve got trust issues? That’s his catch-all. And we’ve all got our shit to work through!”

The way she spat it out was laced with spite, but it somehow didn’t feel aimed at Hill. “Yeah. You’re probably right. I should have talked to you instead of… that.”

“I can’t talk either. It’s okay. I mean, not _okay,_ but it’s not like it was all you.”

“Takes two to box,” Hill acknowledged.

There was a quiet. “That wasn’t boxing,” said Natasha. “Where’d you train?”

 _The basement. The closet._ “Around. Little of everything.”

“I took martial arts back in Russia. I hated it, but I was good at it,” Nat replied. “You know the feeling.”

A late-night jogger passed the park, sneakers tapping the concrete in a soft rhythm. The guy didn’t give them a second glance, but the two kept quiet until he was gone anyways.

“Brought you something,” said Hill.

“Is it a K-906 wireless microsurveillance camera?”

She pulled the camera out from her pocket and passed it over.

Natasha popped open the port at the back, checking for tampering. _Smart girl._ “I still want you to tell me what you know. I don’t think I’m getting anything more from this thing than you did.”

“I didn’t want it for any sort of evidence. I was never going to give it to you, you know.” Clint was egging her on from the corner of her mind. “I just wanted to keep you-- everyone-- out of this.”

The girl laughed out loud, a surprisingly melodic sound. “Trust issues.”

“Some might say,” Hill replied with a grin that was only half for show.

With a grinding protest of metal, Nat pulled herself up from the swing. “I should go.”

“Should you.”

“Probably.”

And she went.

 

Stark

 

Of every class you could possibly have at 8:30 in the morning, Tony had lucked out and landed phys ed. Guidance counselor thought it’d be good for him-- he’d tried to argue, but it was that or Family Studies. Hadn’t been a hard choice, even if it meant he had to get up twenty minutes early so he could change before everyone else turned up.

Carter C. I. used to have segregated gym classes, but somebody had yelled about it being sexism until Fury caved and threw boys and girls together. It was through this sinful move that Tony Stark found himself paired with Barbara Morse for the badminton unit. Never in his life had he thought he’d rather be learning to change diapers, but as Bobbi spun her racket with a smile on the other side of the net, it crossed his mind.

_Hello, Tony! Time for utter humiliation!_

“It’s okay, Stark,” she joked. “I’ll go easy.”

Tony’s eyebrows raised. “Like hell you will.”

“Well, I guess if you don’t want pity…”

“ _Beaten by a gi-irl,_ ” sang Natasha from her spot beside Tony. “Come on, let’s see it!”

“All right,” Tony growled, staring across the net. “Let’s go.”

Bobbi shrugged and tossed the birdie up. There was a sharp _twang_ as the racket made contact, and then something hit Tony hard between the eyes-- “OW!”

Nat elbowed him. “Gotta be faster. Bobbi could smash at a hundred miles an hour last time I checked.”

“Was that the _birdie?_ Come on, Bob, you can’t do that, you practically gave me a black eye--”

“Totally legal. You should practice more,” suggested his so-called partner.

Beside him, Clint and Natasha were whipping the air so fast that Tony could hear the rackets swish. _Twack-hss. Twack-hss._

_I should build a robotic badminton racket._

“Your serve, Stark!”

_I wish Bruce was here._

Coulson let him go to the washroom without any of the usual annoying sign-out BS, which was lovely, because Tony had no intention of coming back. He had Bruce’s schedule memorized, and the guy was in freaking _biology--_ he knew that shit backwards and forwards. Probably diagonally, too.

“Hey,” Tony hissed as he settled down at a desk beside his friend. “What’s up?”

Bruce did a double-take when he saw Tony’s gym uniform. “You’re _really_ taking P.E.!?”

“Yup, it was that or--”

“Family Studies, I know, I did the math. Figured you’d beg for a spare or something. Aren’t you getting marked for participation, though?”

“Eh. I’ll pull the trans card. Coulson’ll freak and give me top marks for _dealing with my challenges admirably._ ” It was probably true. “Are you guys _still_ on DNA?”

At the front of the class, Bruce’s teacher was either completely deaf or trying very hard to ignore them, copying out what seemed to amount to the entire human genome. “Yeah,” Bruce replied matter-of-factly. “Jemma asks too many questions, it’s holding everything up. If I were you, I’d probably tell her to shut up and get off to Harvard already.”

The girl in front of them huffed, turning around with a glare. “It’s not my fault I actually want to acquire a solid understanding of the topic at hand!”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Shut up and get off to Harvard already.”

Bruce snorted.

Jemma’s eyes were on fire. “Personally, I think it’s preposterous how you feel it’s acceptable to mock me for my hard-earned intelligence when _you_ had everything handed to you on a silver platter. Not all of us were child prodigies!”

“One: rude, two: my platter was solid vibranium, thank you very much.”

The girl looked at him with something Tony might have almost thought amounted to hatred. Bruce sighed. “Seriously, Jem, lighten up. You know all this. You’re top of the class. Stop worrying.”

“You _two--_ ” She threw her hands up and went back to her notes.

Tony stared at the back of her neatly parted hair for a moment, then turned to Bruce. “So, anyways.”

“I talked to Natasha,” Bruce interjected. “About Fury leaving. We’re going to… we’re going to try and stop it.”

“I figured that was a given,” Tony muttered. “You know I’m with you all the way, but I think you need to tell me what’s up with this HYDRA crap.”

His friend nodded. “Yeah. Okay. After school?”

“After school.”

“Be _quiet,_ ” grumbled Jemma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week's media rec is How To Get Away With Murder, because out of the 8 main cast members, only two are straight white males. Plus, it's cynical and smart and brilliantly written. Go watch it. Do yourself a favour.


	6. Keeping On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I didn't get a chapter up last week :/ I had a lot going on and couldn't get to it, but AS YOU CAN SEE, I have now :)
> 
> see end notes for trigger warnings please!

Hill

 

The door to ‘her’ house was ajar, and Hill’s mind went not first to burglars but to Clint: it would be just like the guy to get caught because he forgot to close the door. Not like he was in much danger from her, though, and maybe he knew it.

In a way, she was half-grateful. Didn’t have to fumble around with her keys to get in-- just nudged the door with her knee, and it swung open. Hill was getting acquainted with the place in way you only do with a home, not looking as she dropped her bag by the door, reaching up to flick on the lights. She clicked them on and off a couple times to get Clint’s attention (wherever the guy was hiding) and sat to untie her shoes.

Footsteps swished across the floor; he’d noticed the flickering. Continuing to pick at the knots with one hand, she lifted the other to wave a greeting.

“Don’t give me any of that shit, Maria,” came a gravelly reply.

The girl froze.

_It’s. Not. Clint._

Thieves she could take.

Rapists she could take.

Her father, she absolutely could not.

 

Barton

 

They’d known each other for years, and they talked with the practiced ease of longtime friends: Natasha’s smirk, Clint’s eye-rolls, a patchwork of words and signs that somehow wove themselves together into a sort of love beyond love. Tony was pissed that they weren’t dating. The whole school was pissed that they weren’t dating, but they didn’t get it.

Clint didn’t really get it either.

What he did get was this: the glimmer of the sun in her eyes even on a cloudy day, the way her nose twitched when she laughed, the confidence with which she held herself. The red of her hair and the black of her jacket, contrasts to each other, to the gray of fall.

This was love. Just not the kind everyone thought it ought to be, and he didn’t care.

Lucky assaulted a bone in front of the park bench, dog-slobber dribbling onto the grass as Nat scratched behind the retriever’s ears. “Clint,” she said, looking up so he could read her lips. “I want to talk about Maria.”

“Sorry,” he answered, circling a fist around his chest. “Didn’t catch that.”

Natasha sat back and fingerspelled out the name. **_M-A-R-I-A--_**

He cut her off. **_Stop. Don’t call her that._**

 ** _Sure, I’ll call her H-E-L-L-B-E-A-S-T._** Nat looked indignant.

“Just--” **_Just call her Hill, okay?_ ** Clint’s curled hand flicked open.

Thumb tapped chest. **_Fine. Hill. Where can I find her?_**

Clint spoke, the effect eerie as his brain tried to spit out words it couldn’t hear. “Tasha, we’ve been over this.”

 ** _I know,_** signed the girl. **_But I don’t think she’d mind this time._**

**_One nighttime park meet-up doesn’t mean BFFs._ **

“Clint!” He couldn’t hear it, but she didn’t need him to-- it was simply an expression of annoyance. She lifted her hands as if to sign something, but dropped them back into her lap a moment later.

 _Girls will always screw you over,_ he remembered Barney telling him. Not sure this was what his brother had imagined.

A cloud drifted across the afternoon sun, and Clint sighed. **_You’ve got her number. Text her._**

 ** _I’m not stupid,_** replied his friend. **_That number ran through a throwaway account. I tried._**

He paused. **_How much do you know?_**

 ** _I know about HYDRA, if that’s what you’re asking._** _Dammit, Barton. She knows you knew, she knows you didn’t tell her--_ he reached down, gave Lucky a comforting pat.

Natasha’s eyes were pleading. **_I need her. I need answers. She has them._**

Not _you_ have them. _She._ Hill didn’t tell Clint much: he’d figured HYDRA out on his own, and all she’d done was confirm it. If Nat thought he had answers, she’d be pumping him for more than Hill’s number.

Clint didn’t want HYDRA in charge any more than Nat did, any more than Hill did. And he was quite certain that the two of them together would be more than sufficient to stop it.

**_I’ll take you._ **

 

Hill

 

The collarbone is one of the easiest bones in the human body to break. You make a fist, you bring it down hard, and you feel the crack. Self-defense for dummies: she knew the drill, but as she stood slowly, numbly, the thought of fighting back seemed alien.

You couldn’t beat him.

“Maria,” came the rumble. “You make me sick, you know that?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He stepped closer; she could smell the whiskey on his breath. “You’re a piece of shit.”

She winced. Held her place. If she stepped back, he’d hit harder. That was how it worked.

“You’re a piece of SHIT!” he screamed. “You ungrateful pig!” The words stung, but all she saw was his fingers curling. All she heard was the slap of his fist into his palm.

“Living it the fuck _up_ in the lap of fucking luxury while your own father--” her gut clenched to stifle a sob-- “your own father rots in the mud--”

_I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry._

The words caught in her throat as the tears caught in her eyes.

His eyes were the colour of rotting wood. “Got an apology?” he hissed.

_I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry--_

Then he roared, and maybe there were words but all Hill felt was the spray of spit and the numbness sinking into the pit of her stomach; and all there was was fear and pain and _I’m sorry--_

 _I won’t._ Hill’s feet were planted. She was frozen. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, could hardly see through the haze of terror, but her mouth stayed resolutely shut.

“SAY IT!” he screamed, lifting his hand.

Now she really couldn’t see. She was going to pass out. Thank God for that-- nobody liked to beat on someone unconscious--

\--a scream--

\--was it her?

 _No, no, no…_ she could see again, the fog was fading, and she tried to will the blood back out of her brain but the blur stubbornly coalesced into a motionless shape on the floor. A fallen body (too big to be hers)--

A person standing behind it.

A swish of red hair, and somebody who caught her as she finally crumpled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: violence, abuse  
> TW: child abuse
> 
> You get two media recs because I missed last week-- The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde (one of my favourite books of all time tbqh) and The Rule Of Three by Eric Walters!
> 
> As always, thanks for reading <3 I love you guys.


	7. Allies

Barton

 

Clint dropped to his knees beside Nat, whacking the floor beside Hill. “HEY!” he yelled, sure he was fucking up the pronunciation-- didn’t care much.

Natasha had taken it in faster than he had: the back door lock had been easy to pick, but neither of them had accounted for another uninvited guest. He’d been confused at first, then surprised. Then he saw the raised hand, the dark hair… too late.

But Tash was already there.

“HILL!” he yelled again.

A finger jabbed him sharply in the shoulder. **_She fainted,_** Natasha signed from where she cradled the girl’s head. **_She’ll be fine._**

Clint’s eyes widened. _Fine?_ “I’m calling Steve,” he said, gasping. “His mom’s a nurse, right?”

Nat snapped her fingers beside Hill’s ear. **_She’ll be fine._**

He was already dialing, phone held up in front of his face so he could see when Steve picked up. Couldn’t hear, but he could imagine the guy-- _yeah? hey?_ “Steve,” he gasped.

 ** _Give me the phone, you idiot,_** signed Nat exasperatedly. She snatched the mobile out of his hands, held it up to her ear-- “Hey, Steve,” Clint made out as she spoke.

Nat signed out Steve’s replies awkwardly, one-handed: **_Hey, Nat…_ Who _fainted?... uh-huh… where are you guys?_**

Hill coughed, and Clint suddenly remembered. “No!” he yelped. “Don’t tell him!”

She said something into the phone that he didn’t catch, then “...two minutes?”

_Sorry, Hill._

She hung up and tossed Clint’s phone back. **_He says to lift her legs up and that he’ll be here soon._**

**_I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone._ **

“I can see why,” Nat replied, glancing over at the hulking form on the floor. She tapped a finger absentmindedly on her knee-- Clint doubted she realized she was doing it. Lifting her hands up, she signed the next sentence. **_I can keep a secret, and I can definitely keep this one-- Steve can too._**

He knew that already. _It’s not about whether you’ll tell anyone else. It’s that I did._

 ** _Can you get her legs?_** Nat asked.

 

Rogers

 

It was turning out to be quite the shitty week.

 

Romanoff

 

Hill was starting  to come around. Nat remembered having read somewhere that if someone was unconscious for more than two minutes, you should call 911-- Clint had seemed ready to call instantly. Sweet kid. Bit of a sheltered life.

“Hey,” he said aloud, tapping her lightly on the shoulder.

She flinched, and Natasha slapped Clint’s hand away. “Don’t touch her.”

 ** _Sorry,_** he signed, wincing.

 ** _I know it sucks not being able to help,_** replied Nat, flicking her thumb out from under her chin and lifting a fist with her other hand. **_But she’ll be okay._**

 _Don’t know about her dad, though,_ she thought. A hard crack on the temple would give any normal guy a concussion, keep them out of commission for weeks. Poor guy probably didn’t have anyone to spoon-feed him soup in a dark room.

Looking over at where he lay prone on the floor, Natasha contemplated feeling bad.

She didn’t.

The doorbell rang, and Hill picked this moment to jolt upwards with a gasp: breath caught in her throat, and she threw a wild punch in Natasha’s direction. _Should have expected it._ Nat grabbed the girl’s wrist and gently lowered it. “You’re fine,” she said.

Clint scrambled forwards. “Hill!”

There was a wild look in her eyes. “Clint?”

 ** _Get the door,_** signed Nat. **_I got this._**

“Natalia?” The fear was giving way to confusion now. Hill cringed as the door creaked open: in the background, Nat could hear Clint talking to Steve.

“Yeah, it’s me,” she muttered. “It’s okay.”

Hill reached out for Nat’s shoulder, surprising the girl until she realized that Hill’s blue eyes were focused on something behind her. Her dad. “Fuck--”

The snap of fingers caught her attention, bringing it back to Natasha. “Hey. Don’t think about that now,” Nat ordered. _Funny-- talking like she can--_

Hill held a hand to her forehead, brow furrowing in pain. “Now… now what do I do?”

 _You’re asking me for advice now?_ “Clint and I are going to dump him in an alley somewhere, and then you’re coming home with me,” Natasha decided. “You can sleep on my floor… take the slot beside Clint, who cares. It’ll be a slumber party.” Jokes broke tension, even if they weren’t funny.

“Hey,” came a soft voice. “Hill?” Steve knelt down beside the two girls, brushing a lock of blond hair out of his eyes. “How’re you feeling?”

Natasha was expecting her to shy away, maybe to get angry, but Hill just sighed and closed her eyes. “Not great.”

 

Hill

 

Here’s why she hated passing out: she was the only person she trusted, and if she wasn’t around, shit like this happened.

Not that she didn’t like Steve. Not that she really knew him (just lots about him). But it was hard to stay in control when you had so many variables to worry about.

He took her pulse, pulled out a juice box. Talked her into lying back down. The door clicked shut behind Clint and Natasha: her father hung like meat between them, looking like he’d had far too much to drink.

“They didn’t tell me anything,” Steve said unexpectedly.

Hill looked up; the boy was focused on an old copy of _Fellowship of the Ring._ He repeated himself without looking up. “All I know is your name, and this place’s address.”

Bitterly, she replied. “That’s all anybody knows.”

“Mm. Maybe that’s a bad thing. I mean… if Nat hadn’t shown up,” he shrugged, “well, I don’t know the guy, but it probably wouldn’t have been good.”

A page turned, paper scraping. Hill rolled back over and stared at the ceiling. “How’s Bucky?”

She felt him look up, glance at her. _Ooh. Hit a nerve._ “He’s fine.”

“Does he know?”

Steve flipped another page, but Hill could tell he wasn’t reading. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 _I didn’t either, till you said that…_ “Okay,” she smirked.

“Drink your juicebox,” he replied.

“I’m not _diabetic!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this week's rec: 'Fangirl' by Rainbow Rowell. It's actually really sweet and well-written and just.......just good okay
> 
> thanks for reading, as always! :)


	8. Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick note! the girl Bucky got caught with at cadet camp was originally named Trish, but since Jessica Jones came out, I switched it to Tara for the sake of simplicity. same person ;)

Barnes

 

_Steve: hey, sorry, I know I said i was free right after school_

_Steve: something came up_

_Bucky: its fine_

_Steve: It’s not. I’m really sorry, it was an emergency_

_Bucky: i know_

_Steve: I wish I could come_

_Bucky: yeah me too but i can study on my own_

He was still thinking about Tara.

She’d forwarded some crap to him the other day, some group email from Cadets-- wanted to make sure he’d gotten it. Clearly, he hadn’t, and she realized it as soon as she’d hit send: his inbox was full of frantic apologies. Sweet kid.

Steve swore she was crushing on him, and Bucky believed it. The kissing had probably been unfair.

Oh well.

Fuck it.

_Bucky: hey where are u? maybe we can meet up after whatever you’re doing_

_Bucky: …_

_Bucky: are you dead_

_Bucky: dude_

_Steve: okay_

_Steve: does 7 work? we could meet at the school_

_Bucky: yeah sounds great_

 

Romanoff

 

It’s amazing how many streets you can carry an unconscious man down without a single weird look.

Despite Nat’s varied and multifaceted job experience, this wasn’t something she’d done before. Clint had been the one to suggest they drop Hill’s father next to the firehouse: the side door was usually people-free, but someone was sure to come out soon. Someone medically trained, just in case.

“He’ll be okay, right?” Clint asked.

 ** _You’re sweet,_** Nat signed. **_Are you camping out with me tonight? I invited Hill._**

 ** _Fine. Can we order pizza?_** He glanced down at where the man lay prone. Nat almost thought she caught a hint of pity until Clint reared back and kicked him hard in the chest with a grunt-- the boy shook out his ankle. **_Okay. Let’s go._**

 

Barnes

 

“Hey, punk.”

“Yeah, yeah,” replied Steve. “What’s up?”

Bucky leaned back against the brick walls of the school. “Do I need a reason to want to see my best friend?”

Steve laughed. “You’ve got to submit an application… it’s very complicated.”

The air was cooling after the sunset, and Bucky couldn’t help but shiver. “So what, exactly, was more important than studying? Come on,” he said lightly. “Feed me the gossip.”

“Natasha,” Steve smiled. “She needed my incredible medical skills… or Clint did, I guess.” He shrugged. “Nat did the talking.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “Barton’s deaf, of course she did.”

Steve rolled his eyes.

“Anyways,” the dark-haired boy continued, “how’re things? Finally find yourself a girlfriend?”

A spurt of laughter split the dark. “Yeah, _sure._ ”

“Boyfriend?” Bucky said it like a joke, even as something weighted his stomach.

This time, a longer silence. “Not one of those, either.”

“A _romantic partner?_ ” Bucky was almost _annoyed_ now, for a reason that escaped him.

“God, Bucky, drop it,” Steve muttered bitterly.

People do strange things in the dark: this is why truth or dare sucks with the lights on, and it’s what spurred Bucky on. He heard the words as he spoke them, processed them, winced-- but he said them anyways. “What? You don’t like me insinuating the school jock could like anyone other than girls?”

 

Rogers

 

He looked up at the sky.

He looked down at his shoes.

He looked over at Bucky, and his gaze lingered a split second too long on his friend’s lips.

Bucky sighed. “Sorry,” he said, scuffing a boot on the ground as he stared out into the dark.

The sentence wove itself; flew out of Steve’s mouth. “I could, you know.”

The scrape of sole on concrete went silent. Bucky froze.

“Like someone other than a girl.”

 

Barnes

 

The weight shifted; now it was something more like butterflies.

“Sure you could.”

Steve’s voice was rough. “Fuck off, Bucky.”

_He means it._

“Sorry I got kicked out of Cadets,” Bucky murmured. “It wasn’t worth it.”

“Yeah, I miss you too, jerk,” Steve said.

 And then there were only inches between them, brown eyes fixed on blue--

 

Stark

 

Bruce gestured aimlessly to his flowchart, which had expanded to spill onto the ceiling. “It doesn’t makes sense. I had Natasha look over it too… we couldn’t find any patterns, really anything at all.”

Tony clambered up onto a table, contemplating the marks above his head. “You know, you _could_ have dug a little deeper than Google.”

His friend was clearly offended. “I’m great with Google.”

“You’re looking at this with the same information _everyone_ has,” Tony exclaimed. _For a genius, you’re a bit of an idiot._ “To get a new conclusion, you need new data.”

Bruce crossed his arms, oversized green sweater wrinkling at the elbows. “And how do you propose we get that data?”

Tony had already moved on, scanning the basement walls. Absentmindedly, he replied: “I don’t know… God, Bruce, do you even know what you’re trying to do?”

“Not really,” grumbled the boy. “Stop HYDRA.”

A Sharpie caught him between the eyes with a crack. “Ow!”

“Write it down,” ordered Tony. “You’re writing what you do know, not what you need to know. Have you even talked to Hill yet? She knows what you don’t know you need to know-- that was a mess, sorry--”

“CALM DOWN,” bellowed Bruce.

Tony thumped down on the table, crossing his legs obediently. Hard to disobey a polite request like that.

His friend walked up to him, put his hands on his shoulders. Looked him in the eye. “Maybe I need to speed up, but you need to slow down.”

A sigh.

A nod.

“Good.” Bruce said. “You want me to talk to Hill? I guess I have to get a girl’s number, then.”

“We should have a meeting,” said Tony. “Me, you, Nat, Hill… who else? Clint probably knows if Nat does. We should pool our knowledge.”

The taller boy dug out his phone. “Hill might not show.”

Tony smirked. “She’s curious. She’ll come.”

 

Rogers

 

Six inches.

Five.

Bucky blinked. “I really do have to study.”

Six again.

Seven.

And then there were five inches, four, and he could feel Bucky’s breath on his cheek, could smell his toothpaste-- _who the hell brushes their teeth after school?_

“You can copy my notes,” Steve whispered.

Three inches.

Two.

And then none.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> your awesome comments keep me going. thank you all, whether you commented or left kudos or if all you did was read a chapter-- you're amazing!
> 
> this week's thing rec is 'Unwind' by Neal Shusterman. it's not very fun, but it's exciting and interesting and you should read it.


	9. Richter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> brief **misgendering** cw for this chapter!

Barnes

 

People talk about fireworks when you kiss The One™. They say that their lips feel like satin and they smell like roses, that they didn’t know how they lived before this--

But there were no fireworks.

There was no background music.

There was just Steve.

He tasted like onions; probably a burger grabbed on the way here. His lips were chapped and cracking. It was getting cold, and the streetlights cast chilly light across the road-- it wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t incredible.

But it was Steve.

And Bucky.

Kissing.

One of Steve’s hands sat lightly on his waist, the other on his shoulder: Bucky could feel his own heartbeat in his chest and hear it in his ears, that was how hard it was pounding, and he loved it. Steve sucked in a lungful of frigid air, the exhalation tickling Bucky’s face as he leaned back in with a half-laugh.

“Why’d this take so long?” Bucky murmured against his lips.

“You were too busy with your military comrades,” Steve whispered back. “Why are you talking?”

Bucky shut up.

 

Banner

 

“Can I stay over?” Tony inquired, not looking away from an elaborate diagram he was drawing on the wall. “It’s, like, eleven. Your mom’ll be cool with it, right?”

Bruce sighed. “Yeah, sure. She might make you sleep in the basement, though.”

“ _God,_ ” grumbled his friend. “Does she think we’re going to have hot steamy sex on a school night right across the hall from her room? Fine.”

This was a discussion they’d had several times before, one on which Bruce’s mom was very inflexible. “You’re not sharing a room with a girl,” she’d insisted repeatedly. “I’ll call him what he wants, but he was Bethany when he was born and that’s not changing.”

He’d filtered it a little bit when he brought Tony the verdict. Better for all of them.

Bruce tapped the table absent-mindedly. “So. Are we still planning on a big meeting tomorrow?”

There was a squeak as Tony drew the marker across the page. “Yeah. Me, you, Nat, Hill. Have you noticed how Clint’s been oddly absent from all of this? He’d never miss something this big, especially if Nat knows--”

“So he’s involved somewhere we don’t see him,” Bruce said.

“Occam’s razor,” Tony declared triumphantly. “The simplest explanation: he’s with the unexplained party in the equation. Hill.”

There was a pause but for the scuff of shoes as Bruce hurried over to the wall, uncapping a Sharpie. Shapes were shifting in his mind-- there was a word on the tip of his tongue-- he drew in quick, sharp strokes, scribbling over old lines and sketching out new ones. “Clint and Hill…” he muttered. “So Nat’s got to know Hill somehow… and Nat’s close to Steve, so _he_ might know something…”

Tony spoke to the back of Bruce’s head. “So there’s our team.”

The boy heard him loud and clear, recapping his first marker and opening a red one. _Maria Hill // Natasha Romanoff // Clint Barton -- Tony Stark // Bruce Banner // -- Steve Rogers?_ The names weren’t sketched this time, but written out in bold, confident lines: the words of a conclusion, not a hypothesis. It was satisfying to watch the ink sink into the concrete, and Bruce watched it in silence as it dried. “All right, then.”

 

Stark

 

_Tony: hey, nat. me & bruce have questions_

_Natasha: for someone raised and socialised as a girl you have no idea how to talk to one_

_Tony: kk w/e_

_Tony: clint knows right? bc we made a hardcore flowchart and i want 2 make sure it’s right_

_Natasha: yeah he does. idk how_

_Tony: and hill I need to kno abt hill_

_Natasha: jfc dude. please. we’ll hold a meeting or something i’m not debriefing you over text messaging_

_Tony: nice_

_Tony: tomorrow after school yeah?_

_Natasha: ok_

_Natasha: I assume clint & co are invited_

_Tony: assuming &co refers to hill, deffo_

 

Hill

 

“Here’s some blankets,” Natasha said by way of explanation as she dumped a pile of covers in Hill’s lap. “No mat, sorry, but at least the floor’s carpet.”

“I’ve slept in worse,” Hill replied. “Thanks.” _No. Really. Thanks._

Clint was already setting up off in another corner, unrolling a sleeping bag beside his pile of assorted junk. Could have left it all in his bag, but Hill knew he was the type to dump everything out. The guy must spend a lot of time here-- he seemed completely at home.

A pillow hit Hill in the head, and she winced. “Thanks.”

“It’s not feather,” Nat shrugged. “Parents aren’t big on luxury.”

“No, it’s--” _Great._ “Hey.” She waved at Clint to get his attention, signing her words as she spoke. “Thank you. Thank you both so much.”

Nat touched her thumb to her chest. “It’s fine.”

 ** _Really,_** Clint signed, tapping his chin. **_We get it._** He flinched. **_I get it._**

The other girl sighed, looking down. “Anyways. Rules are easy. No eating on my bed, don’t leave the room unless I say or the house is on fire. Don’t talk to my parents under _any circumstances,”_ she said as she brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “Their English is awful and they’re easy to piss off.”

Hill blinked, fiddling with a loose thread on one of the blankets. “Я говорю по-русски.”

 ** _Is she speaking Russian?_** Clint inquired politely, eyebrows raised.

 ** _Yes,_** signed Hill. **_Badly._**

Nat smiled, and Hill almost thought it was genuine. “вторая часть до сих пор точная.” She interpreted for Clint’s benefit: **_The second part still stands._**

 ** _We’re having a conversation in three separate languages,_** Clint signed with a face that made it clear he was whining. “And I still can’t hear… Anybody want Doritos?” He pulled a bag out of his stuff-pile, opening it without waiting to hear their answers. “Of course you do.”

Hill looked back at Nat, biting her lip. “Спасибо. шутки в сторону.”

“You’re welcome,” Nat replied. “Seriously. If it makes you feel better, say I owed you for the camera.”

“I owed you for beating you up.”

The redhead couldn’t hold in a laugh. “Oh, _please,_ I let you win.”

Hill took a handful of chips. _Maybe you did._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hell yeah hell yeah who doesn't love sleepovers
> 
> also, i'm deeply sorry for my mangling of the Russian language. If I've got any followers who speak it, feel free to a) yell at me AND/OR b) correct me. Google Translate sucks.
> 
> today's thing rec is Kingsman: The Secret Service because _there's a chick who slices people up with her prosthetic legs_ and also it's a good friggin' movie


	10. Guns & Ammunition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to throw in a note here on Bucky: when I started this fic, I really wasn't thinking at all about his arm. Which was kinda shitty and absentmindedly ableist of me-- so. It's not something I'm really going to focus on, but the rest of this fic will be actively written with the assumption that Bucky is a left-arm amputee.
> 
> I'm going to comb through earlier chapters a little bit later to remove references to his left arm, but for now I want to apologize for neglecting this part of his character and express that I'm going to do better!

Romanoff

 

She couldn’t sleep.

This wasn’t entirely abnormal: Natasha had always been more of a dozer than a hibernator, especially with other people around-- but tonight felt different. Not like her eyes wouldn’t shut… no, this was something else.

It was her thoughts keeping her up.

For once, she knew everything she needed to; most of it, anyways. Her windows were locked, her door jammed shut. There was nothing she needed to do. Nothing she needed to worry about, but she couldn’t. Stop. Thinking. About Fury. About the camera, about sharp kicks to weak knees, about the glow of the streetlights through her curtains.

About the boy across the room.

About the girl on the floor beside her.

All she wanted was to rest for a while. She didn’t have to be strong when she slept.

 

Banner

 

MINUTES

recorded & transcribed by Bruce Banner

 

_The following is a transcript of a meeting between B. Banner, T. Stark, N. Romanoff, C. Barton, and M. Hill that occurred over a lunch period in an empty classroom._

 

TONY

\--Bruce, are you fucking recording?

 

BRUCE

[pause]

\--Yes. It’s hardly going to hurt to be thorough.

 

TONY

\--Jesus. Calm down. It’s not like we’re taking down the FBI.

HILL (quiet)

\--We might as well be. HYDRA’s been around for years… they’re like the overzealous, evil PTA. Thinking they can boss everyone around.

 

TONY (annoyed at being cut off)

\--Nice black eye, _Maria_.

NATASHA

\--Shut it, Stark.

 

BRUCE (looking very handsome)

\--Can we get to the agenda, please.

 

_From where he is sitting on a windowsill, Clint waves._

 

CLINT

\--I’ll start.

 

_He begins to sign._

 

NATASHA & HILL (simultaneously, interpreting)

\--We all know different parts--

 

NATASHA

\--Sorry.

 

HILL

\--You go.

 

CLINT (signing, interpreted aloud by Natasha)

\-- ** _We all know different parts of the story, and we all learned them different ways. Some of us stumbled into it accidentally. Some of us sought it out on our own. Some of us were helping a friend-- and some of us_** [he looks pointedly at HILL] **_haven’t really got a good explanation._**

 

HILL (signing as she speaks)

\--I have one. You know that.

 

CLINT (interpreted by Natasha)

**_\--The point is that we’re all here now, and I’m assuming none of us want Fury gone and good old CC turned into a fascist standardized robot-producing institution. So we’re here. And I personally think it’s about time we pooled our damn resources._ **

 

STARK

\--Very inspiring. So let me see if I’ve got this: evil brainwashers want to take over our entire school board and stop us from learning about the scawy scawy gays.

 

HILL

\--Nice smart mouth, _Bethany._

 

[There is a long pause.]

 

TONY (quietly)

\--Shut your fucking mouth. You don’t get to do that just because you’re pissed. You don’t _ever_ get to do that.

 

HILL

\--Neither do you.

 

CLINT (interpreted by Natasha)

**\-- _Tony. Hill. Please._**

 

HILL

\--Yes. Basically, they want to stop us learning about the _scawy scawy gays._ But it’s not just that. They want to totally fuck over the education system in this city.

 

TONY

\--They probably don’t think that.

 

NATASHA

\--Of course they don’t. They’re real believers in the power of education… Fury just disagreed with their methods.

 

CLINT (sarcastically)

**\-- _Their methods include the total eradication of all happiness and creativity._**

 

BRUCE (hurriedly)

\--Not really. Just a lot more worksheets.

 

HILL

\--A lot more worksheets and an end to free will.

 

TONY

\--It’s high school. What free will?

 

HILL

\--Or, you could try not being clever and acknowledge that it could be a lot worse, and it’s going to be if they kick Fury out. You like your robotics? You like getting to do projects and not memorize textbooks? You like being able to have a fucking conversation with your teachers instead of taking standardized tests all day?

 

NATASHA

\--They’re not going to kick him out.

 

HILL [looking over at Natasha]

\--Aren’t they?

 

NATASHA

\--No. They’re not, because we’re going to stop them. And if they won’t, you and I will, and if you can’t then I’ll beat them up and dump them behind a fire station.

 

TONY

\--I feel like I’m missing an oddly specific part of this conversation.

 

HILL (quietly)

\--Yeah. You are.

Barnes

 

His teacher’s kid had gotten appendicitis.

The test had been delayed.

This was lucky, because he hadn’t studied much last night, and he figured his mum wouldn’t be writing him an excuse note for this one. _Hey, Mom! I snuck Steve into our basement and we spent an hour kissing on your grandmother’s vintage couch, and then we stole some wine from your liquor cabinet and Steve had four glasses and wasn’t even half tipsy-- you ever heard of anything like that? Hell of a metabolism. What a hell of a metabolism. Then he left and I jerked off in the shower and belatedly thanked God that you were working the night shift._

His mother hated the night shift, but Bucky didn’t feel the slightest bit bad for thinking it. Normally he would have, but not this time.

He wasn’t going to feel bad about anything this time.

And that’s what he was saying to himself when he came across Maria Hill crying in the boy’s washroom.

It wasn’t pretty-girl weeping, not the delicate tears you see in the movies: she was sobbing so hard her entire body convulsed and Bucky couldn’t help but wonder how she was breathing. The sound echoed off the tile walls, her hands pressed tightly over her mouth but doing little to muffle the noise.

She didn’t look like a girl. She looked like an old woman there, in that moment-- she sounded like something dying.

And pathetic as it was, Bucky almost left. He had history next period, with Steve, and he didn’t know Hill at all, and he was exhausted and still hungover and her moans were eating away at the leftover buzz of last night.

But he didn’t.

She was curled up beside the sink, shaking; Bucky closed his eyes. Opened them. Walked over and sat next to her in silence.

Hill sobbed.

Bucky sat.

The bell went off to signal the end of lunch, and Hill sobbed, and Bucky sat, and they stayed like that for what felt like hours.

“I can’t do it,” she finally whispered, her voice rough and gravelly. “I’m a piece of shit.”

Bucky studied the wall and thought about Steve. “Maybe.”

The girl pulled the sleeve of her hoodie over her hand and scrubbed it across her face.

“Jesus,” Bucky muttered. “Here.” He pulled a pack of Kleenex out of his pocket with his good arm ( _give the girl a_ hand _, Buck,_ he imagined Steve joking), and Hill’s face twisted like she was fighting to keep back more tears.

“Thanks,” she murmured, taking them shakily. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I just have no fucking idea what to do.”

Bucky shrugged. “Me neither.”

“I have to save everything every time and I hate it.”

 _What was it that all your mom’s self-help books recommended?_ “Um. That sounds like a really big problem. Maybe we should…”

Hill looked up, fixing red eyes on Bucky’s. “Focus on the small stuff? I’m homeless. The only vegetable I’ve eaten this month is a packet of ketchup. I just said something really, _really_ cruel for the sake of being petty, I haven’t been to bio class for six weeks, my fucking cell plan just _fucking_ expired. My father got knocked out by somebody I hardly know, and I was _relieved,_ and to top it all off I think I’m getting a fucking crush.”

Her words sounded louder than they were as they ricocheted off the ceramic of the bathroom.

Bucky didn’t say anything.

Hill stopped talking.

One of the toilets gurgled softly, and the two of them sat in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hella
> 
> this week's thing rec is the fic "The Daily Rogers", which I'm too lazy to link to, but it's on ao3 and I have faith in your ability to find it. it's probably one of the best fics I've ever read tbh.


	11. Something Else

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taken me so long to update!

 Romanoff

 

 Fury lived a couple of blocks away from the school, in a old, beat-up shack that would have been a shed by normal-person standards. Not that Natasha made a habit of stalking her teachers: it was just useful to know where the people whose asses you were trying to save lived, so she’d followed him home one day.

 “Still stalkery,” declared Tony.

 “You’re the one with the binoculars.”

 He was. The two of them were perched in a tree, contemplating their principal’s backyard and debating points of entry. The idea of knocking had been brought up once or twice, but Tony had dismissed it as _boring--_ unsurprising, really.

 Natasha shifted her weight and grabbed another branch. “It’s Fury. He spent a quarter of last year’s school budget on motion detectors for the washrooms, you think we’ll just be able to hop in a window?”

 “I’m not sure this thing even _has_ windows,” Tony muttered, refocusing the binoculars. 

 Natasha appraised the structure. “My best guess would be to hack his credit card bill and see what kind of alarm system he’s got,” she stated. “Maybe it’ll be something simple.” _Famous last words._

  

Banner

 

 Bruce’s first reaction was confusion. “How can _that_ thing have any alarm system?”

 “Well, it does,” muttered Hill grudgingly. “And a bit of a scary good one at that.”

 “You’re tight with Fury, aren’t you? You got the code?” It seemed like a reasonable question.

 Hill rolled her eyes. “Yes, he has me over for dinner every Sunday. _No,_ of course I don’t have the code! What do you even think you’re going to find in there?”

 Bruce smiled. “Can’t draw collections without information… which _you,_ I seem to recall, have been a little reluctant to share.” He fiddled with a switch on the side of his laptop, glancing up absentmindedly at the flowchart still holding residence on his basement wall. 

 “I have trust issues,” said Hill. 

 “You know a Jessica Jones, by any chance?” Bruce watched the girl’s reaction carefully-- was that a cringe?

 “Yeah, I know Jess. We’ve got history. Why?”

  _History._ Nice. “Did you beat _her_ up too? Jessica, Natasha… are you trying to get your head smashed in?”

 Hill sighed. “Not exactly. Why do you want to know about Jessica?”

 Bruce spun his computer around, showing her the grainy security-camera footage. It was hard to make out: the video was from a shop across from Fury’s place, and they hadn’t been too concerned with keeping an eye on the shack. In the corner, however, you could just make out an image of the front door-- and of a dark-haired girl prying it open and slipping inside.

 Hill stared.

 “The alarm didn’t go off, if you’re curious,” said Bruce smugly, turning the screen back to him. “So she knows the code. That’s Jessica, isn’t it?”

 “Play it again.” Hill walked around the table and leaned over Bruce’s shoulder to watch in silence. “Yeah. That’s definitely her.”

 “Any chance she was an invited guest?”

 A smile curled the corners of the girl’s mouth. “Jess doesn’t go places invited.”

 Bruce shrugged. “Conclusion: your history book is about to get reopened.”

 

 Jones

 

 There were a lot of people who could have been knocking on Jessica Jones’ door. Trish was definitely the most likely, possibly with a bowl of spaghetti in hand as she fled from the dinner table. Her quote-unquote mother took second place. It could have been a guy from the camera crew who were supposed to be following Trish around, or the plumber who’d finally gotten called in to fix the sink-- plumbers take wrong turns all the time, especially in a house this big.

 “Coming,” she grumbled, raking a hand through her hair as she got off her bed and walked over to the door. “Just so you know, this isn’t the bathr--”

 She shut up.

 “Hi, Jess,” muttered Maria Hill awkwardly. “How’ve you been?”

 She looked exactly the same, and this annoyed Jessica for some inexplicable reason: same dark pixie cut, same navy t-shirt, same battered jeans. Even the way she stood-- hands jammed into pockets, back straight but head down. 

 “You’ve got three seconds,” growled Jessica. “One. Two.”

 Hill ducked under her arm just before the she heaved the door shut with a crash that could have woken the dead. “Jess, we need to talk.”

 “Damn right we do.”

 The other girl sighed. “Not about that.”

 Jessica narrowed her eyes. “Hell yes _about that!_ ”

 “Do you know Principal Fury’s alarm code?”

  _Jesus._ “Maria, are you fucking kidding me right now?”

 “Don’t call me that,” muttered Hill, sitting down on the edge of Jessica’s bed. “I need the code.”

 Rather than shove her off the bed, Jessica cracked open the door and bellowed down the stairs. “TRISH!”

 “Come on,” Hill moaned. “No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week's thing rec is the x-files, because it's a classic and gillian anderson.


	12. // AUTHOR'S NOTE //

Hey guys!

So I've been working on a lot of stuff lately, and looking back on this fic, I've come to realize that, uh, it's not my greatest work. Much as I've loved writing it, it's time for me to understand that it's never going to be anything great: it's been something I whipped out a weekly chapter for without planning, editing, or very much plot, and I can do better! :)

I AM going to finish this baby up at some point! Probably a chapter or two more, and then I'm thinking about orphaning it. I've learned a lot from my work on CC and I've had an awesome time writing my first 'long' fic (yes, 12k is long for me). Thanks so much to all of you who commented, especially if you came back for new updates, and thank you for all the kudos and subscriptions. Every one meant a lot and kept me writing.

A new chapter may go up next weekend, or maybe not ;) I've got a WWII stucky fic that's consuming a lot of time right now, so if you like my writing there's something to look forward to there! Overall-- don't worry, you'll get your closure on this one. Not sure when, but it'll come!!

Thanks again, guys. Really.

\--Rhi

[EDIT:

I haven't finished the fic up yet, as you can tell. I'm planning on doing some major edits and reposting later on my account (@captainpeggy), but I've made the decision to orphan it, just so it's not something people leap to when they see my ao3 page-- like I said, not my best work ;) I'll be glad to have this first draft behind me so I can focus on making the second one even better!

I'm giving you my ao3 account so that if you really did like this fic, you can check back there for more of my stuff and, later on, a New Improved Carter Collegiate! :)]


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